Shop the biggest Collection of AA Big Book covers on the web! Leather & Vinyl, Giant Print and even Mini Pocket size.The Big Book was originally published in 1939 by Bill W. (William Griffith Wilson) and Dr. Bob (Robert Holbrook Smith). Together they founded the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) fellowship. The book serves as the basic text of AA. There has been a series of reprints and revisions, as well as translations into dozens of languages. The second edition (1955) consisted of 1,150,000 copies. The book is published by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. and is available through AA offices and meetings, as well as through booksellers. The 4th Edition (2001) is also freely available online. Marty Mann (1904 – 1980) wrote the chapter "Women Suffer Too" in the second through fourth editions of the Big Book. |
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Bill W. started writing the book in the beginning on 1938. Charles B. Towns (1862–1947), an expert on alcoholism and drug addiction, who was a supporter and creditor of Alcoholics Anonymous, lending Wilson $2500 ($38000 in 2008 dollar values) to enable him to write what became the "The Big Book" of Alcoholics Anonymous. The table on which the book was written is now in a house named, Stepping Stones in Katonah, New York, belonging to Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Bill W. and his wife Lois Burnham Wilson. |
The house is now part of National Register of Historic Places listings in Westchester County, New York and a museum. The desk on which Bill wrote "The Big Book", originally belonged to a friend who had lent him an office in Newark for the project, it was eventually moved to Stepping Stones and now resides at "Wit's End," the office retreat he built on the property. President Richard Nixon received the millionth copy of the book, while the 25-millionth copy of the Big Book was presented to Jill Brown, of San Quentin State Prison, at the International Convention of Alcoholics Anonymous in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to commemorate the fact that, in 1941 the first prison meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous took place at San Quentin. |
